Search

A response to double standards

As I was procrastinating on Instragram and eating a box of Oreos, I scrolled down to a post about the double standard on sexuality and gender.

This meme really nailed it!! I’m sure many of us have heard people say “if lesbians use dildos, why don’t they just have sex with a man?” Every time someone would ask me this, I honestly wouldn’t know what to say but thanks to this post… now I do >:) haaaa, okay all jokes aside, this meme introduces a serious case of double standards, sexism, and a tad bit of ignorance that is present in modern society.

Many people associate using dildos with heterosexual women who don’t have a penis around to satisfy their current sexual dilemma, which in some situations is the case. But also, the use of dildos goes beyond just heterosexuality. It is for those women who enjoy vaginal stimulation in general–regardless of their sexuality.

Just throwing out this video on double standards. Gives a nice definition and a bit of history on it 🙂

Like this:

Related

Post navigation

4 thoughts on “A response to double standards”

Lisette R.says:

Lolz…. box of oreos and procrastinating.. I feel it!!
I think this is a really cool post. This is a good example of double standards. Anybody can say something ignorant such as the example you provided but it seems more prevalent that heterosexual males make these comments about lesbian women (some, not all, of course). Yet, those that dish it out cannot take the same magnitude of comments in return. It is a clear display of questioning something that they do to understand as unorthodox when it is simply “odd” to them because they are not the ones that practice it. It is easy to criticize or question something that one does not understand, but there is a correct way of questioning. That correct way is questioning something for the purpose of understanding it, not for the purpose of undermining its effectiveness or purpose. Anyways, I thought this was pretty interesting!

I really enjoyed the video you posted. It is very important to explain the historical context of anything really because it fully explains why society is the way it is today. You could definitely tie this in to Michael Foucault’s research on the history of sexuality. This for me reinforced how everything is a social construction. However, since we can explain why our society is the way it is, why is it so difficult for us to create effectual change, even in 2015? I think spreading more knowledge like this would help with the de-normalization of society.

I also think that the double standard here comes from society looking for any way to make it so there are no “true” lesbians and to delegitimize lesbian identity. I think that it is an interesting example of lesbian identity policing/gatekeeping. Additionally, it definitely limits which sex toys/acts belong to which sexualities, privileging heterosexuality. It also reinforces the stereotype that lesbians are women that have failed at heterosexuality/rejected by all men rather than not being attracted to cis men in the first place.

While i have seen that picture or meme many times before, I still find it rather refreshing. It makes me think about the topic of the social construction of gender, sexuality, and of course sex. I mean there are so many things that apply to “sexual intercourse,” to me there is no defined space or limitation, simply because i know that everyone experiences it in a different way. As Barbara Risman explains, gender is a social structure, we do gender, we perform it, which in other words: it is not what we are but what we do. “We cannot study gender in isolation from other inequalities, nor can we only study inequalities’ intersection and ignore the historical and contextual specificity that distinguishes the mechanism that produce equality by different categorical divisions, whether gender, race, ethnicity, or class” (Risman, 2004). Words like “dildo” and “doing it” in the “ass,” are just words that somehow take up a space and have allowed people to become a part a certain category within that ‘space.’ Maybe my argument or beliefs can be formed into these question, why is society so fixated on labeling and stereotyping the way people express their sexuality, there desires, and feelings? Why are “dildos” limited and associated with straight women or even heterosexuals couples who use similar sex toys? Basically, it favors or privileges heteronormativity(which works by ‘silence’ and ‘saying,’ only one way of having normal sex)-activities, and suppresses the LGBT community. Now I understand where the humor is coming from and on certain occasions it has made me chuckle when i read it out of the blue. However, i guess from an “educated” or unbiased/open-minded point of view, i would like to say that there is nothing unusual about lesbians wanting penetration, vibration, stimulation however they so choose to call it, or how it is not dildo=penis, because that would imply as the meme says only “having sex with a man.”